Captain D’s Leverages CMX1 to Manage Global Supply Chain

Headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, Captain D's is the nation's leading fast-casual seafood restaurant, with more than 540 locations across 23 states. Over the past 50 years, they’ve been serving their customers with a wide variety of high-quality seafood at reasonable prices.

Captain D’s has always committed to putting their customers first, so it was important to find an efficient way to manage their large network of global suppliers, and provide the data for better decision making and proactive quality management.

• Captain D’s was founded in 1969 and celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2019
• The company was named the #1 seafood chain in the QSR 50, ranked by AUV
• Captain D’s ranked in Entrepreneur Media’s 2021 Franchise 500 for the 7th year, 4 consecutive years in a row
• They were recently recognized as Nation's Restaurant News' Top 50 Beloved Brands

The Challenge

Captain D’s has a multi-sourced global food supply chain, currently consisting of 60 suppliers. They needed a platform that would further streamline their management of supplier relationships, and to ensure the ongoing quality and safety of food products being sourced - as efficiently managing a supply chain of this size was extremely important in keeping their commitment to their customers.

The Solution

To meet their requirements, they chose the CMX1 Platform to manage a growing, worldwide network of distributors and suppliers.

By using CMX1, Captain D’s gained powerful visibility and insight into their supply chain. More importantly, they get the data they need for better decision-making and proactive quality management. This ensures the quality, safety, and compliance of the company’s globally sourced seafood menu items, half of which are proprietary.

CMX1 provides a comprehensive, automated, single-platform approach to supply chain management which improves the efficiency of:

• Supplier management including evaluations, onboarding, and product commercialization approvals;
• Product specification authoring and approvals including internal collaboration with R&D and suppliers;
• Supplier compliance concerning FSMA requirements and HACCP controls, process flows, food safety, and applicable product certifications.

Despite the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on restaurants across the country, Captain D’s thrived in 2020 with record sales growth and has begun this year with a double-digit increase in same-store sales. They plan to open several new locations (including new restaurants in Texas and Florida), including their first-ever restaurant in Utah, later in 2021.

Captain D’s + CMX = a long-term partnership

With plans to open additional stores this year, Captain D’s will expand its use of CMX for the following:

• Third-party product inspections to monitor ongoing quality and manage release procedures for seafood before being loaded onto ships from processors;
• Resolving product quality incidents, and executing product withdrawals and recalls within their restaurants;
• Enterprise reporting and supplier scorecards.

“We’re extremely impressed with the easy-to-use, intuitive and logical design of the CMX1 platform. The ability to automate tasks and workflows allows the Quality Assurance team to focus on building relationships with our suppliers, distributors, and franchisees, and making sure food quality meets Captain D’s high standards.”- Mark Earnest, VP of Quality Assurance, Captain D’s

“Partnering with a fast-growing fast-casual brand like Captain D’s is a real win for CMX. The company’s commitment to providing its customers with an excellent quality product is admirable and their ability to keep this commitment is key to their success. We appreciate Captain D’s trust in CMX1’s proven ability to provide the quality data insights to help them manage their highly complex supply chain and look forward to expanding our relationship even further this year.” - Mitch Porche, CMX CEO

About CMX

Leading brands including Burger King, Arby's, Taco Bell, Sonic Drive-In, Raley’s Supermarkets, RaceTrac, and Hasbro trust CMX’s cloud-based Enterprise Quality Management Software (EQMS) CMX1 to help them achieve and maintain Operational and Quality Excellence. For over a decade, CMX has led the market with the most comprehensive, user-friendly, cloud-based EQMS platform for food and consumer brands. It’s the only enterprise solution to effectively combine supply chain quality and operational excellence into a single, fully configurable operating platform.

For more information and other Client Stories, visit our homepage or call 1-858-866-8888.